Virtual reality is no longer confined to sci-fi novels. Did you know that 80% new car designs see their first light thanks to a Barco virtual reality system? And so do new designs at aluminium building expert Reynaers Aluminium. Engineers, architects, investors, contractors, etc. can now walk in a five-sided cave to view, experience, evaluate and fine-tune building designs. The cave was the first one to be equipped with our high-brightness laser projectors.

Full immersion was key
“In the cave, visitors can virtually integrate our products into their concepts, discover conflicts and modify details,” explains Erik Rasker, CTO at Reynaers Aluminium. For this concept to work, full immersion was key. That is why Reynaers absolutely wanted a large, five-sided cave, including ceiling projection. After extensive talks with different integrators and visits to cave set-ups, they teamed up with Barco. Our laser projectors appeared to be the best choice to depict the high-resolution images that Reynaers was looking for.

Digital prototyping made easy

After months of hard work, Reynaers, Barco and Swedish company Nanco set up a huge (4.8 x 3.3 x 2.5 m) VR cave – probably the first one of this scale to be used for architectural applications. From the in-house R&D team through to architects and consultants; everyone who uses the cave is pleasantly surprised to see how well the system deals with different file types and kinds of 3D models. Reynaers, for its part, is delighted too: the VR cave is fully booked for many months to come.